Telephone calls allow to achieve an intended object of putting at least two parties, namely a calling and a called party, into communication with each other. In particular, the large spread of wireless terminals (e.g. cellular telephones) has strongly improved the possibility of communication between parties.
The communication between parties is now being further improving by new services made available on last generation telephones in addition to the traditional voice call service, such as instant messaging and presence services. For example, WO 2004/056137 discloses a mobile telephone terminal that provides a user with a selectable option to transfer a telephone call to an instant messaging session and to transfer an instant messaging session to a telephone call.
However, the above stated object of putting two parties into communications with each other is often not achieved for many different reasons. For example, the called party could be already engaged into telephone communication with another party, so that the calling person receives at its telephone terminal a “busy” tone; as another example, the telephone call to the called party could be unanswered because the called party is not available, e.g. since she/he is attending a meeting, or is far from the ringing terminal, etc.
Sometimes, it may happen that a called party cannot answer the call due to a current context in which answering to a telephone call may be inconvenient, inopportune and/or impolite (e.g. during a conference, or an important meeting, or a ceremony, etc.). In such cases, the called user may leave the call unanswered, or he/she may refuse the call, e.g., by pressing a suitable key of the telephone (hard key or soft key).
Usually, a voice mailbox can be associated with the called party, so that the calling party may leave a voice message, in case the called user is busy or does not answer the call.
Some cellular telephones allow definition of a default short message to be sent to the caller, in case a call cannot be answered. The sending (and possibly the adjustment of the text) of the short message can be activated by a suitable key (or series of keys) made available as option by the software of the called party's telephone.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,795,541 discloses a method for completing a call when a called party has not answered the call from a calling party, by detecting a signal indicating that the called party has not answered the call and terminating the call. A message is presented to the calling party that indicates the called party has not answered the call and prompts the calling party to compose a multimedia message to be delivered to the called party. The multimedia message is then sent to a multimedia messaging service server (“MMS Server”) for subsequent delivery to the called party whenever the calling party completes composition of the multimedia message.
US 2001/0031633 discloses a method for use in a wireless communications system for performing a context-based call answering function. More particularly, in the '633 patent application a method is disclosed for processing an incoming call, including the steps of (a) storing a current context for the user; (b) in response to an incoming call to the user, determining if an automatic call answering function is enabled and, if so; (c) transferring information to the caller that is descriptive of the current context of the user, without ringing the user's phone. The current context can be determined by a sensor and/or by input from the user, and may be stored in the user's phone equipment or in a Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) server. The step of transferring information includes a step of transferring a voice message to the caller, or a text message (e.g. an SMS message) to the caller, or an animation to the caller, or an identification of an animation that is stored in the caller's phone equipment. The step of transferring information can also comprise a step of transferring a page from the WAP server to the caller. In this case a further step of the method uses the caller's phone equipment to interact with the transferred page for directing further call processing. For example, the further call processing can include one of leaving a message for the user, or causing the call to be put through for ringing the user's phone.